


the ivory pawn

by starkly (cerie)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Crossover, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28203759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/starkly
Summary: There are other places than Westeros to make an alliance and richer kingdoms to plunder on behalf of Sansa Stark.
Relationships: Peter Pevensie/Sansa Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24





	1. A NEW WORLD

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie/gifts).



> This is inspired by but not related to the [Narnia in the North](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596649) series that my best friend Callie wrote. You don't need to read that to read this but there's a little scene in there between Peter and Sansa that gives the title to this fic.

It starts with a boy’s fancy. 

Sansa is well aware of Robin Arryn’s soft mind and fancies and even when he’s too old to believe in such things, he tells her one snowy morning that there’s another world beyond the tree in the Godswood. 

“How can that be? The tree’s hardly big enough to even be called a Godswood,” Sansa snaps, tired of his games. Still, he insists, and it’s something they just have to live with while he speaks of talking animals and something called fauns and a great talking lion. Sansa thinks if there’s a great talking lion, it’s likely to be a Lannister, and she wants to be as far away from House Lannister as she can possibly be. She hates being hidden in the Eyrie, coloring her hair and calling herself Alayne, but what else is she to do? Baelish is keeping her safe and away from everyone. Baelish is going to give her the North again. 

Sansa spends three years there, just waiting, and once she turns seventeen Baelish pulls her into the Godswood and she’s afraid he’s going to try to kiss her again the way he had two years ago. She’d foisted him off then, pushed him away, and her aunt had died for it. She had no fondness for Lysa Arryn, that’s true, but did she deserve to die for the lust of Petyr Baelish? Sansa doesn’t think so. Still, she’s just a little bird and she isn’t here to _think_ she’s here to look pretty as an ornament, a jeweled bird in a gilded cage.

“It’s true,” Baelish says, taking her hands and leading her to the largest tree in the Godswood. “I went through myself and saw everything that he saw. He’s a weakling and soft in his mind but this is something he got right. There’s a rich land, Sansa, rich and ripe for plunder. Their armies could help us take the North. You could be the key to getting it back.” 

She is a key. She’s always been a key, meant to turn in a lock when the door should have been open to her all along. It’s her door, her keep, her North. Why is she just a key when she’s the last of the Starks? Still, she must do as Baelish bids for now because in the care and keeping of Cersei Lannister, her head will no longer be attached to her neck. To keep herself aloft, she has to sing the song. The prettiest song for an empty-headed girl, the harmless mind behind the finest porcelain. That’s all she is. No one knows of her steel and the cleverness she’s learned at the feet of her jailors. No one ever can.

Baelish puts his hand on the trunk of the largest tree in the pitiful Godswood of the Eyrie and something like a window opens, a snowy forest with a strange light sat beyond it. It’s what Robin had described to the last, the very place he’d said existed and they’d all denied. Sansa trembles with the excitement of it. It’s true, then, this place so far from Westeros with talking animals and peace and summers that come in a few months and not years. 

“I’ve made a treaty with the king. They have four, actually. Two kings, Peter and Edmund, and two queens, Susan and Lucy. They all rule together jointly. I’ve never heard of such a thing but Peter is the eldest. He’s the High King. Wash the dye from your hair. You’re going to meet these Narnians as Sansa Stark.” 

She hasn’t been Sansa in so long that she’s forgotten how it feels and when she’s been bathed and the dye has been washed away in the copper tub, they dress her in silks and brocade of the finest quality, sky blue to set off her burnished hair and Tully-blue eyes. She has a cloak of pure white, trimmed in ermine, and gloves and boots to match. Baelish pushes and pulls at her clothes until he’s satisfied with how she looks and then they go through to Narnia, which is no different than the Eyrie or the North just now. It’s freezing cold and the snows are deep. Sansa is well-acquainted with the cold and the bite of it comforts her. 

The window is too small to accommodate horses and none could be brought up from the Gates of the Moon in winter besides so they must walk on foot. It’s no way for a lady to travel, though, and Baelish says he’s written ahead to the Narnian monarchs to provide horses once they get through the gates and through the Western Woods. Clearly this must be those woods because they look as wild as the Wolfswood even if Sansa has never been through those in her whole life. The woods are the purview of men and hunters, not highborn girls, and she wouldn’t have gone anyway. Arya would have, though, and would have relished exploring this wild, new world. Arya would be much better for this than she is. What is she but there to look pretty and pretend to be stupid? At least it is only pretending. 

It’s difficult to make it through the heavy snow in skirts and Sansa wishes she could have worn something less delicate for the walk to wherever they can get their horses. It’s a town called Beaversdam, apparently, and they have prepared a warm welcome for their party from Westeros. “It’s not much farther,” Baelish keeps saying but the soldiers he’s brought with them don’t make comments. They’ve made this journey before and she thinks they have more of an idea of what it means to march across a country than Baelish does with his ships. Sansa made the long trip down the Kingsroad from Winterfell to King’s Landing as a girl but she’d made so much of it in a litter and very little walking or riding a horse. She’s not a good horsewoman, if a confident one, so once she’s on a horse she thinks she’ll be much happier than she is trudging through the snow just now. 

“You keep saying it’s not much further but it feels like we’re going to march the whole of this country with no relief from snow and no place to make camp,” Sansa says, a bit petulant. She’d left that behind in childhood, really, but she’s freezing and miserable and there’s no sign of a town anywhere. There’s just _animals_ and woods and endless snow. If she were going to do this, she’d much rather be marching home to Winterfell and sleeping in her own bed. She’d much rather be ruling her own people and her own lands and not be shuffled off to another foreign place to meet foreign people. She’s just so _tired_ and not just in body - she’s tired in soul. There’s been nothing for her after the deaths of her family and it seems one terrible thing after another, one awful plot of the Lannisters leading to the next and the ruin of her life. Her ruin is stained red and gold. 

“I know it is such a far way for a lady,” Baelish says, tone silken with the practice of a well-talented liar. This is the man who can bring coin from air, can seduce whores and maidens, can turn maidens _into_ whores and would have her the moment she let him under her skirts. She hates everything he says, genuinely, but he is her only ally in the world and she has to trust that this Narnian plot is either advantageous for her or at least transparent enough that she can see through it quickly enough to draw herself away into safety. She had been born a wolf and she wants to be a fox, clever and quick, but she fears she’s still a bird whose only defense is to flit away to safety. Perhaps there’s something of the fox in her now, though, and she’ll be wise about this when she’s presented to yet another set of kings and queens. Who can trust them? The Mad King murdered her family. The Lannisters murdered her family. These Pevensies might well murder her. Better her head on a pike than this half-existence. 

When they reach Beaversdam, another of Robin’s fantasies seems to be fact. They are greeted by a family of actual beavers, though they are much larger than any beavers that Sansa has ever seen before. They stand on two legs, not four, and they greet Lord Baelish warmly before making a fuss over her in a way nobody’s ever made a fuss over her. Nobody’s ever wanted her so dearly since her parents have been alive and it feels...good. It feels genuine from this beaver, the admiration and joy, and Sansa isn’t exactly sure what to do with it other than be exceedingly polite. _Show nothing. Be nothing. Reveal nothing._

“We’re so glad to be greeting a beautiful Daughter of Eve in our own home. We’ve been blessed so to have you, Lady Sansa, and hope you’ll stay in Narnia for a long while. Bless my soul, my mother told me about when the Kings and Queens came. They were but children then and now they’re grown, same as I. You’ll be staying overnight with us and then the horses ought to be here from Cair Paravel, they will.” 

Sansa is so shocked that they _speak_ that she says nothing for a long moment and then manages to speak with every inch of her courtesy drawn around her. It’s all she can do to not draw her cloak around her physically as if that will protect her tender heart from being invaded once more by someone who speaks good but might hold the dagger behind their back all the same. It’s happened so many times she doesn’t know that her heart won’t break and shatter the next time. 

“It’s my pleasure, my lady beaver,” she says, to the tittering and excitement of the beavers around her. They are so pleased with her calling their mother a lady like she’s a proper lady in a castle and not just a mother and house-beaver like her mother before her. Sansa’s manners apparently are perfect and charming and while the beaver’s house is entirely too small, they’ve built a cottage in case the Pevensies ever grace them with visits (which is as often as they can, apparently) and there’s a fine bed in it just for Sansa. Baelish makes a fuss about accommodations for himself and he and the soldiers simply bunk outside. It pleases Sansa to know he will be in the cold and wet while she will be in a soft feather bed and away from the company of men for the night. 

She sleeps easier in the comfort of this bed than she has in what feels like years and she wakes to a little skylark who says, again, that she’s pleased Sansa is there and that she will send word to the Pevensies straight away, especially High King Peter, and flutters on about her beauty and her grace. Sansa shakes her head a bit. She’s still in the bedclothes and her hair is mussed from sleep. Are all the animals so kind here. She crosses her legs and looks at the skylark on the windowsill and decides to speak to her, to confide in her. What will a skylark say to Petyr Baelish? Hopefully nothing. 

“Why is it that you’re all so excited that I’m here? It feels a little strange to have all this fuss over me and there isn’t over any of the men. They barely greeted them at all other than to be polite but everyone has tried to talk to me three and four times over. Are women not common in Narnia? There are two queens, aren’t there?” 

The skylark cocks her head and if a bird could _grin_ Sansa thinks this one has. She seems more than excited to tell the reasons for Sansa’s warm welcomes and fusses and she hops from the windowsill to the bed itself, arranging herself in the bedclothes as if it’s her nest. Strange, possibly, but what isn’t strange in this strange land? 

“Oh, but it’s that I’ve heard from my friends at Cair Paravel that King Peter is taking a wife!” the skylark says, all but trembling in excitement from the news. She flutters up into the air before taking her perch on the windowsill again. It seems she’s too excited to keep in one place after telling this important bit of news. The Pevensies are somewhat older than she is, old enough that Peter ought to have had a wife but it hadn’t been possible before now. Sansa feels a lump in her throat that she cannot swallow around, a lump that is choking her and making her feel as if she cannot breathe. Baelish’s grand plan, then, isn’t to take her back home after all but to put her in this land of crib tales so she’s forgotten. The last Stark, bewitched and enchanted away. 

“And you’re so beautiful,” she goes on, hopping around again as she shares her excitement with her new soon-to-be queen. “No one here has hair that color. Of course, there’s only the Pevensies who are like you but none of them have your hair. None of them look like you and who couldn’t love you? Who couldn’t adore you? Oh, I can’t wait to tell him what you look like.”

Sansa cries out then, waving her hands and shaking her head no. “No, no, you musn’t tell him. You have to...it should be a surprise!” Sansa says, trying to scrabble onto something so this skylark won’t go telling her king that his wife is on the way and what she looks like. If she runs away, no one will be able to find her aside from Baelish. The people of Narnia (and surely there must be other _people_ ) won’t know what she looks like and she will be able to pretend to be a serving maid or something until she can find a way back to the Eyrie and back _home_. She has to get to the North. She has to get to Winterfell. She won’t do this.

“It should be a surprise, what I look like, so he might be able to look upon me himself and see me without any knowledge of how I look. You wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise of High King Peter, would you? Of his new wife? You can tell them you met me and lord it over all your friends that you were the first of the birds to meet your new queen. Won’t that be clever? It won’t be a lie but it won’t be telling the whole truth of it.” 

The skylark tilts her head again and then hops excitedly, clearly agreeing. “I will, Lady Sansa! They’ll only know you’re coming and that _I_ know what you look like.” With that, she flies out of the window and Sansa slams it shut, so hard that a bit of ice and snow flies off the edge of it. 

Another marriage. Another pawn to be used in the endless game of cyvasse that is being played by Baelish and the Lannisters and the Boltons and now, apparently, these Pevensies. More names and players are brought into the game and she’s the pawn again, the little ivory piece moved around the board and captured by whoever has the most power. 

“I won’t do it,” she whispers to herself. “I won’t do anything but go to Winterfell.”


	2. BETROTHAL BY PROXY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Edmund are routing a giant rebellion and get a most curious letter from Queen Lucy

None of it is the way of Narnia. None of it is even the way Peter had been raised, so long ago that the memory is a little foggy, back in London. It isn’t the way they do things here to have men broker the lives of women without their presence and the idea of arranged marriage is something repulsive to Peter. It hadn’t been so a short while back but after the Tisroc’s son tried to hold Susan and Edmund hostage, he’s vowed to never let any of his family marry someone purely for political gain and not by choice and mutual camaraderie. 

The letter comes by a falcon, written in Lucy’s hand. She says that Petyr Baelish, Lord of Westeros, brings with him a maiden to barter for troops and gold so that he might further the maiden’s cause back in Westeros. She hasn’t seen the girl for herself, neither has Susan, but they’ve heard reports from the birds that she has truly come through the window and she is in fact on her way to Cair Paravel. It’s no trick this time: Peter has a bride coming. Right now, he’s waist deep in giant’s blood, muck, and who knows what else. He isn’t thinking about a wedding. He’d always thought that Susan and Lucy’s destiny, not his own, and perhaps even Edmund. Not him. Never him.

“What does the letter say, Peter?” Edmund asks him, seated in the High King’s tent so they might plan strategy for the next day. Peter exhales heavily through his nose and thrusts the letter toward Edmund, deciding very quickly that the wrath he has now needs to be put toward giant rebellions and not some girl from a foreign land. Of anyone, she’s an innocent, and ought to be treated with courtesy. It isn’t the way of Narnia to deny someone a proper welcome and she is a Daughter of Eve no matter the company who has brought her here to be brokered in marriage. He’ll be kind to the girl, no more.

“Read it for yourself, Ed. The Baelish filth is back in Narnia,” he spits out. The whole thing has put him in a foul mood even though the battle had turned the tide and they ought to be able to rout the giants thoroughly and have them sue for peace. He rolls his head to crack his neck while he waits for Edmund to read the letter and quite honestly, he does look forward to his counsel. Edmund is the clever one, the one who has been good at reading betwixt the lines and deciphering the true meaning of every letter, every action, every look. Peter has always been much more straightforward than his brother. 

“You know,” Edmund says after a long moment. “You might ought to consider marrying her. Not on terms, or anything, but just to marry her. We’re going to have to marry someday if we’re going to keep ruling Narnia and this saves you the trouble of looking for someone. You don’t know - she might be pretty.” Edmund quirks his lips in a smile and it just makes Peter’s mood more foul. He hadn’t thought of taking a wife because he hadn’t particularly looked and honestly there’s time for that later. Now is time for other things and other concerns - like the war outside their encampment. 

“Do I look like I care for someone pretty?” Peter says, frustrated. “If I was going to take a woman to wife it would be someone of my choosing. Someone clever and kind and possibly pretty but not someone thrust upon me because of a foul treaty with a foul man. I don’t deal with people who peddle in flesh. It’s not right, Ed. It’s not right for this man to bring a girl here and just trade her away for gold.” Edmund tilts his head a bit in the way he does when he’s thinking and Peter doesn’t want to know what he’s going to say. 

“You were quick enough to send Susan to Calormen to try and broker a marriage. Did Susan want to go there at first?” Peter scowls, deeply, and rubs the bridge of his nose. This is nothing like that debacle. Rabadash had come to Cair Paravel first and it was only then that Susan had developed an interest. She’d _wanted_ to go. He hadn’t forced her to go, not one bit, and he doesn’t like the implication that he had. Why would he send his sister away to a foreign place with nothing to protect her and treat her like she was gold or jewels to be bartered away? He absolutely would not and the insinuation of it is enough to make him slam his fist down on the map they use to stage battles, the little wooden pieces flying to the ground. 

“I absolutely did not send her there. She chose to go there on her own free will and if it benefited a treaty with Calormen then that was just a bonus. There was nothing that Susan didn’t do on her own choice and when she was held there, we were the first to want to get her back. I never would have made her stay with a cruel man and you acting like I would is making me seem like a careless and thoughtless brother. If nothing else - call me a bad king or a bad commander but do _not_ call me a bad brother. I love all of you. I would never willingly put you in danger and I would do anything to keep you safe. I would spill blood for you. I spill blood _now_ to keep Narnia safe because I care for it and for you. Don’t talk to me ever again if you’re just going to be sly about it and twist my words.” 

Peter stares him down, blue eyes hard and scowl unyielding and Edmund, damn him, just smiles and waves the parchment at him. What does he think he’s playing at right now? Hadn’t he just said that he would spill blood for his family and keep them safe no matter what? How has anything he said given the lie to that unassailable truth? 

“See, this is why you need to meet the girl. Do you think anyone in Baelish’s keeping is truly safe or happy? He’s said to us all along that she’s an exiled princess, essentially, and her home is being held by men who killed her family. This girl needs our help. Maybe you don’t want to marry her and that’s your choice but no one can deny you care about people, Peter. Why would you have just gotten so angry at what I said if you didn’t care? You need to meet her. Maybe there’s something we can do to help her that doesn’t involve giving Baelish gold or troops. You’re a king, Peter. You’re the High King of Narnia. If you don’t have the power to help this girl then no one else does but Aslan.” 

Peter hates it when Edmund does this. He uses false examples to goad him and then comes around to the truth of the matter after he’s gotten his blood up. It’s like baiting a bull, sometimes, and while it’s an admirable and effective tactic on their enemies it’s absolutely infuriating when it’s turned on him. Still, he’s not wrong. No one in Petyr Baelish’s keeping has to be there willingly unless they’re a co-conspirator and they’re all good at seeing the truth between the four of them. If she’s in with them, they’ll know, and if she’s having to scheme with Baelish she’s probably only trying to go home. If he had been barred from Cair Paravel and it was a Calormene who sat on his throne while they had to run and hide, he’d do anything to get back to where he belonged to take care of _Narnia_. Maybe this girl has thrown her lots in with Baelish so she can take her home back and nothing more. 

“I’ll meet her. We can all meet her and take measure of her. If we don’t agree that she’s good, we won’t consider letting her stay. But if she is good and she’s a hostage or otherwise forced here, we’ll do what we can to help her. We’re in Narnia and we’re far more powerful here than we’d be anywhere else. We’re good people, Ed. We need to help other good people if they need our help. I’m _not_ agreeing to marry her, though. After Susan’s problems in Calormen, I’m wary of marrying anyone that I don’t love and I don’t know. I don’t want to bring anyone into my life permanently that I can’t care for other than fondness.” 

Edmund is still smirking and Peter sort of wants to clock him again. He doesn’t know any better than anyone else about this girl. All they have is one letter written by Lucy saying what’s happened. The falcon who brought it, Swiftfeather, has been watching this entire exchange with keen interest and while falcons aren’t known to be gossipy birds, he’s also seen an awful lot of arguing between the two brothers and that’s something that shouldn’t be spreading around the entirety of Narnia. Talking Animals always mean well, _always_ , but Peter doesn’t want it getting back to Lucy that he’s been arguing with Edmund. Especially not in the field when they need to be united the most. 

“Swiftfeather, what have you heard about this girl that has been brought through the window? Do you know anything about her?” 

The falcon cocks his head a bit. There’s been plenty of gossip among the birds of Narnia and he’s more than happy to share the reports that he’s heard all along. He hops up to a tentpole, a higher vantage point, and if falcons could smile, it seems that Swiftfeather would be grinning ear to ear. Well. At least the animals are excited about her. 

“Her name is Lady Sansa Stark,” Swiftfeather says. “One of the skylarks claims to have met her and says she’s the kindest, most gracious Daughter of Eve they’ve seen and that her beauty rivals that of the queens. She wouldn’t tell anyone what she looked like, though, because apparently Lady Sansa swore her to secrecy to keep her looks a surprise to you, King Peter. I don’t know why she’d want to keep what she looks like away from the kings and queens but she did ask the skylark and she won’t break her word. She _has_ however been telling everyone how beautiful she is. Apparently when she sings, it’s like birdsong and her hair is radiant.” 

Edmund cuts a glance over at Peter and Peter frowns again. “Don’t look at me that way, Ed. The reports of a few birds about how pretty someone is won’t change my mind about meeting her and getting to know her for myself. The Tisroc’s son was handsome too, if you recall, and he was rotten on the inside. It isn’t about how a person looks. It’s about what’s in their heart.” 

Edmund laughs a little and keeps smiling, apparently incapable of discretion. “But it doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty. If she’s pretty _and_ she’s kind, she might really be your wife and not just someone we want to help because she’s in a bad situation. Who knows, I might want to be her husband if we get along well. She doesn’t even have to marry you. No one said that was even part of the deal.” 

For some reason, that puts Peter in a worse mood. Oh well. More fighting tomorrow and then it’s a march back to Cair Paravel. He needs to focus on the fight ahead of him and not some girl who is on her way to see him whether or not he wants her to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that the players in this piece will all meet soon! I plan to do some chapters from Sansa's perspective and some from Peter's but it may not be 50/50.


End file.
